Definition: Prioritizes areas documented within an assessment focusing on landscape corridors connecting core habitats of Large Natural Areas.
Aggregation Method: Method was undergone by the Western Governors’ Association (WGA) Crucial Habitat Landscape Integrity Workgroup. See the Large Natural Area aggregation method for initial information on the landscape assessment. After producing the Large Intact Blocks, the analysis continued to focus on landscape level corridors. These corridors are identified by: (a) delineating potential pathways between or touching Large Intact Blocks; (b) identifying the starting and ending points of the pathways; (c) calculating cost-distance between the starting and ending points, and summing the results; and (d) identifying a 1 mile buffer (on each side) from the pathways to identify the “zone” of connectivity. The zones were then prioritized and ranked 1-3 based on the distance and cost of the pathways, with additional emphasis placed on zones that link Large Intact Blocks of similar biomes. See the Native and Unfragmented Landscapes section of the Resources page in the WGA CHAT website.
Priority Rank Definitions
Priority 1: Corridor zones with the shortest distance and lowest cost weight were given a priority rank of 1.
Priority 2: Corridor zones with medium length and/or corridors that had a moderate cost weight were given a score of 2
Priority 6: All other hexagons were not included in the Oregon crucial habitat analysis, so were assigned a priority rank of 6.
Data Source
Dataset Name |
Dataset Description |
Data Steward |
Important Connectivity Zones |
Landscape Corridors are areas identified as low resistance pathways through the Landscape Condition (i.e. human footprint) data layer. Corridors were ranked based on length and ecological cost, with emphasis given to connecting similar biomes (i.e. grasslands to grasslands, not grasslands to woodlands). |
WAFWA CHAT |
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